


The Chains Cut

by mercurybard



Category: Space: Above and Beyond
Genre: Gen, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-11
Updated: 2011-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-17 22:48:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/182139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercurybard/pseuds/mercurybard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Deserved to know’.  Set after "Sugar Dirt"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chains Cut

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Space: Above and Beyond isn't mine. It belongs 20th Century Fox and a whole host of other people. Title from "Be Giving" by Nico Vega

One minute, Nathan was asleep. If he was dreaming, he didn’t remember about what, and for that, he was thankful. The nightmares dragged him back to Demios almost every time he closed his eyes. And if it wasn’t Demios, it was a dozen other conflicts he’s been embroiled in since the war began. The weight of Neil’s body in his arms…

But then there was a hand on his arm, and the first peaceful sleep he’s gotten in days was interrupted. He reacted on instinct—he’s got nothing else left—and instinct had him flying out of the bunk, knocking his attacker to the deck, one arm twisted behind her back.

Except she wasn’t attacking him at all. She was just a lieutenant—a young one of Indian descent—in the uniform of a bridge officer. “Sorry…sorry,” he whispered as he backed off of her. Good manners would have him offer her a hand up, but there hadn’t been much room for politeness or courtesy in Nathan West’s life lately. He settled for scooting far enough away from her that he can’t be perceived as a threat before levering himself to his feet using the bulkhead for support.

Her name badge said ‘Price’, and she rubbed her elbow as she stood. “It’s my fault,” she said in a clipped accent. “I should not have disturbed your sleep.”

He tried to wave off her protests, but the words won’t come. The steel at his back and beneath his feet was almost icy to the touch, and he wanted to sink into it. Demios had been day after day of heat—dry heat around the air strip and swampy heat the farther into the hills the squad traveled—and he didn’t think the sensation of being cold will ever get old. “What do you need?”

Lt. Price licked her lips and focused on a point on the bulkhead just over his right shoulder. “I wanted…I need to tell you, lieutenant, that your bloody daily call saved the Ixion Offensive.”

He shook his head as if maybe rattling the words around in his skull would make sense of them. McQueen filled them in on the details of the battle that lured the fleet away from Deimos, stranding them in Hell for months, but so much was still classified and compartmentalized. “I don’t understand.”

“It was frustrating—every day at 1900 hours, the 58th’s call would come through and jam all the Saratoga’s transmissions while your captain gave her report about things happening on a planet in another sector. We could be fully engaged in battle with the Chig, and you would knock communications completely out so you could tell us how many dead Marines you five buried that day.”

“Good,” Nathan said, and he couldn’t quite bite back the bitter little laugh.

Price’s gaze dropped to her feet. “That’s what Colonel McQueen said. He and Commodore Ross would not stop berating themselves over the decision to abandon the ground forces at Demios. Listening to your report every day seemed like self-flagellation to me, lieutenant.”

Here, he managed to hold his tongue. Not for her sake, because he didn’t owe her anything, but for his own—the wounds were still too fresh. Better just to say nothing until they had time to scab over, so he didn’t accidentally say something he’d spend the next five years regretting.

“We were heavily out-numbered at Ixion, and the commanders wanted to pull back, but Commodore Ross felt that retreating would mean betraying you on Demios again. They were still arguing at 1900, when you reported that you reclaimed the airstrip. That was the last time we heard from you before McQueen returned with the retrieval squadron, but it was enough to convince the Supreme Commander that Demios wasn’t a defeat, and Ixion didn’t have to be either. I didn’t think the colonel or the commodore would tell you, but I thought you deserved to know.”

Nathan’s head fell back against the bulkhead. ‘Deserved to know’, echoed through his head as he listened to her discreetly leave, shutting the hatch behind her. ‘Deserved to know’. Months far too late for that.


End file.
